Where's my new drive?

Hello all,

Our daughter's PC stopped playing her CDs and DVDs. So I bought a new drive
for it (white box, no installation software included).
Now I realise that the problem may lie elsewhere. The computer cannot find
the new drive (or the existing (slave) CDRW drive).
On reboot, it finds them and adds them as new hardware and says that the
devices are working properly. But as soon as a disc is inserted, the system
crashes and the devices disappeare from DEVICE MANAGER. They appear and are
reinstalled on reboot again.
I have disblaed and uninstalled them, to try and get a clean install, but
the same thing happens. Sometimes they will stay active long enough to open
(eg) Windows Media Player and start a track listing before it crashes out.
Anyone got any ideas?
The drive is a MATSHITA DVD-ROM SR8589 (almost identical to the faulty one
it replaced). It is the master drive in the system.

Computer otherwise healthy. Thanks in advance. Best wishes, shoulderhead
.